


Certainly Not a Thing

by Fairyglass



Series: Fluff Bingo Q1, 2019 [6]
Category: Stargate - All Media Types, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 17:55:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18609571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fairyglass/pseuds/Fairyglass
Summary: John finally gives in to Rodney's lascivious ways, but insists they keep things casual.  The problem with that is -- Rodney McKay doesn't know how to do "causal".





	Certainly Not a Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [DW's Fluff Bingo](https://fluffbingo.dreamwidth.org/), Q1 2019
> 
> Square: Casual
> 
> And a tremendous "Thank You!" to [BloodMooninSpace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodMooninSpace/pseuds/BloodMooninSpace). Thank you for the kind, guiding hand towards a MUCH stronger ending.

“Look,” Sheppard had said, pulling away with a wet pop. “I don’t want this to become a thing.”

“What do you mean by ‘thing’?” The color is high in Rodney’s cheeks, his hair tuffed in places where Sheppard has occasionally carded his fingers through while they’ve been kissing. 

Well, ‘making out’ if Rodney is going to be honest about things, which is just ridiculous considering neither of them is 16 years old anymore, but there’s definitely been some light dry humping, so let’s just call a spade a spade.

And it’s been kind of fantastic, amazing, even awesome for only having been the last hour if yes, at least three years in the making, and they haven’t even gotten to the sex part yet because, see reference: not 16 years old, but consenting grown adults. And John Sheppard is easily as hot as Samantha Carter, so Rodney is very keen to understand what Sheppard means by ‘not a thing’. 

“I mean.…” John said, his hand motioning vaguely into the air above them. “Let’s just keep this casual, you know? Not a thing.” 

Rodney’s eyes narrowed. “‘Casual’?” He still can’t figure out if this thing-adjacent definition precludes naked.

John’s hand is snaking under the collar of Rodney’s shirt again, cupping the nape of his neck to pull him back in. “Yeah. Just… casual, okay?”

“Okay,” Rodney said breathlessly, already trying to crawl back into John’s lap, so is pretty sure he’d say anything to make that happen. “Casual, yeah, yeah. Casual.”

But Rodney doesn’t “do” causal. It isn’t like he doesn’t understand the concept, the Philosophy of Casual, he just isn’t very good at it. At all. In anything. Not his work, and certainly not in his private life. It’s why he tells people exactly what he thinks regardless of who they might be, proposes four months into dating and had two PhDs before 27.

Aiden Ford had once accused him of having “zero chill, Doc.” And he suspects he hasn’t gotten any better at it, because Ronon only recently told him to “calm down before I shoot you,” which Rodney figured is a Pegasus galaxy equivalent. 

Except now Sheppard is here, in his actual life, not just the fictitious one he runs through when in bed or in the shower, and the man is asking for “casual”. And really, should he be surprised? What _isn’t_ casual about John Sheppard. Well, aside from the running and the shooting or the way his jaw flexes when he’s grinding out some terrifying antagonistic insult at the Wraith or Genii. So, okay, it’s more that Sheppard _affects_ casual, which is admittedly different than actual casual. But the way he lounges in briefings, stuffs his hands in his pockets while holding up door frames, or cuts into Rodney’s very important scientific explanations with things like “nano-ninjas” certainly sells the impression.

But Rodney doesn’t do casual.

Thankfully casual did not preclude sex, and it was just as fantastic, amazing, even awesome as the making out had been.

.:O:. | .:O:. | .:O:.

Teyla calls the planet “Augine”, though the way she pronounces it makes Rodney think more of New Brunswick then of the Pegasus galaxy. They’ve opted to walk instead of use a jumper; Teyla said the village and markets are not far from the gate, and that it’s Spring there and will be a pleasant walk.

Rodney misses MALPs a bit, but still finds he’s more than amply prepared when they round the well worn dirt road and find that said village and markets are swallowed on all sides by wildflowers. Without hesitation, he reached into the front pocket of his tac-vest and pulled out the tiny blister pack of antihistamines. 

He breaks one out for himself, obviously, but then breaks a second out for Sheppard.

John just looks at it. “What.”

“For the flowers.”

“What?” John repeats.

“PX-whatever whatever, with all the tall hippies that made us wear flower crowns, and you kept sneezing, and your eyes got so swollen that Carson had to give you a shot in--”

“McKay.” It isn’t Sheppard’s threatening tone, but it’s definitely the 'choose your next words carefully' lilt.

“Rodney,” Teyla says, looking at him with mild confusion. “That was nearly three years ago.”

“Yes?” He’s finally pressed the pill into John’s hand, and is now pushing his water canteen on the man.

“We’ve seen flowers before,” Ronon adds.

“Right, but these look exactly like those did, so--” Rodney makes a ‘drink’ motion at John.

John narrows his eyes a bit, but takes the pill. Rodney hums, satisfied, as he takes his canteen back.

.:O:. | .:O:. | .:O:.

On P4J-J77, or Bylarr to the locals, Rodney drops into John’s ear, “You’ll want to avoid the stew.” He himself is halfway through a second bowl of it, but John and Teyla had been finishing up trade talks while Ronon and Rodney had scouted the area for ‘any Ancient stuff, or whatever’. What they’d found was lunch and John figures that’s good too.

“Why?” John asks, eyebrow arching. Anything that isn’t an MRE is always welcome on a mission, and while Rodney and Ronon will eat some disturbingly gross shit, this didn’t exactly smell gross.

“It’s got milk in it,” Rodney volunteers, shoveling a spoon in.

“And?”

“And,” repeats Rodney with a serious amount of significant eyebrow waggling. When John just looks expectantly back at him, Rodney sighs. “You’re lactose intolerant? Even space milk. I doubt you want to make an ‘unscheduled offworld evacuation’ before we reach the gate.”

“McKay!” This time it’s the threatening tone and John looks around in exaggerated concern.

“What?” He shoots back, immediately on the defensive. “You are! And I doubt you took your ‘Dairy Ease’ today; I’ve seen it in your bathroom. Look, lactose intolerance is extremely common, nothing to be ashamed--”

“Oh my God,” John swears, running a dry hand over his face as he turns and walks away and Rodney is pleasantly surprised because he absolutely recognizes his own words falling out of John Sheppard’s mouth.

.:O:. | .:O:. | .:O:.

One afternoon at lunch, John said to the table with a certain amount of relish, “Man, we’re usually out of the vanilla pudding by this point; they never order as much as they do the chocolate. But they’ve had vanilla almost a month longer than usual. This is great.”

“Yeah,” Rodney says matter of factly around his sandwich. “I told them to double the order.”

John’s spoon hovers over the dessert. “You did what?”

“Yeah, though you’re fighting Parrish over it, apparently.” Rodney makes a vague motion out towards the mess hall, generally referencing the botanist’s presence wherever he may actually be.

John is quite the rest of the meal, letting Ronon, Teyla and Rodney fill the space instead.

.:O:. | .:O:. | .:O:.

One of the routes John and Ronon take on their morning jogs is out to the South pier. It’s the most accessible by foot and faces the mainland, a hazy smudge across the horizon that reminds them they’re not completely alone in their floating city. About 700 meters away from the dock, they’ll start egging each other by sprinting then falling back. Ronon will always be faster than John; his build is just more powerful, his longer stride chewing up the ground beneath him easily, and youth will forever be on his side. But John’s stamina is extraordinary, something resolved inside him that puts one foot in front of the other long after he should have reasonably stopped.

Ronon will always get there first, but John will always get them home.

At 400 meters, they give up the ghost and just peel off at full speed, laying out flat towards the world’s edge. It’s equal parts friendly competition between the two of them and a joint middle finger to anyone and everything that’s ever told them to just give up. They skid to a stop only centimeters from the precipice, fighting against gravity as it tries to drag them over and into the ocean below. 

Ronon throws an arm out, catching John flush against the chest with enough momentum to stagger them both back. John gives him an appreciative nod, breathing heavy as he flicks the sweat out of his eyes. 

Someday John’s sure they’ll both miscalculate the distance and just run right off, and then Major Lorne will have to man a rescue mission to fish them out, and he’ll never hear the end of it if they manage to survive the combination of drop and icy temperature. But that day isn’t today, so all is still well with the world.

While they’re catching their breath, they keep themselves moving, pulling and stretching at muscles to ease them back down.

“Hey,” Ronon starts, something awkward passing over his usually easy countenance. “So that airman -- Heather Isbell?”

John is pulling his ankle up behind him. “Yeah?” He knows Isbell more from her jacket than as an actual person: Lieutenant, gene carrier, advanced designated marksman - counter sniper, to be exact. She hangs out a lot with Cadman and Renault.

“She finally asked me out.” Ronon is holding his arm straight across himself, pulling on his shoulder. “I know she’s been working up to it. Finally did.”

“Oh yeah?” John uses a passively interested note; he knows Ronon’s been struggling to integrate with the base staff beyond beating up the Marines, so he’d like to encourage this if this is what Ronon wants. The contentious expression still on his face is casting certain doubts on that idea, though.

“Yeah. You… you and McKay want to come with?”

John drops his ankle in shock. “What?”

“Like a double-date thing, from one that movie.” He’s talking about that John Hughes flick Teyla had insisted on, much at McKay’s encouragement. With the teenagers and the comedy of errors and senior prom and Life Lessons. She and McKay ate it up, John had read his latest edition of LINKS magazine.

“Ignoring the fact I’m her boss, making that about nine shades of inappropriate -- why me and _McKay_? Why not me and Teyla? Or Teyla and McKay? They liked that stupid movie. You could all get malts together.”

Ronon drops his left arm for his right arm, giving John a cynical double-eyebrow arch.

John tilted his head, squinting hard. “No.” Though whether it’s at the invitation or the idea Ronon’s suggesting, that’s left to guess.

“Worth a shot,” Ronon says with a shrug, shaking out both arms. “You good?”

“I’m great,” John grinds out, already turning to jog back towards the city proper. Ronon shrugs again and follows.

.:O:. | .:O:. | .:O:.

It was the definition of a Quicky -- something in the middle of an extremely busy week, when both of them are so desperate for a moment together, they invent an engineering problem that can only be resolved by Rodney’s brilliance and John’s gene but instead meet up in John’s quarters on a Wednesday afternoon around 1400. They’re done by 14:22.

“It’ll have to do,” Rodney sighed, meeting John half way for one last kiss.

Rodney declines a shower; there’s an _actual_ engineering issue he should look into, which means he’ll be up to his elbows in that disgusting ancient/Ancient machine lubricant anyway, so he’ll just do it all later. Zelenka will never notice anyway, he’d snorted, pulling his pants back on. John has to meet with Elizabeth inside an hour, so figures he shouldn’t show up with Rodney still drying on his stomach.

McKay’s gone by the time John steps out, and something tight settles around his chest briefly. He clears his throat and shrugs it off, desperate to ignore the significance. Dropping the towel, he opens his sock and underwear drawer to dig out a fresh set of each when he notices a discreet black bag tucked into the back corner.

He knows that bag, that’s McKay’s toiletry bag. Sometimes he’ll pull it out of his jacket pocket if he wants to brush his teeth or clips his nails and something about it infuriates John. The presumption of its location, the audacity of its implication in his sock drawer. He snatches it out and contemplates throwing it off his balcony, but thinks again and just puts it into a cargo pocket of his uniform before he steps back out.

.:O:. | .:O:. | .:O:.

John chucks it at Rodney’s head three nights later. He’s not even all the way across the threshold into the room when he throws it.

“Fuck!” It catches Rodney off guard, smacking the back of his head with enough force to sting. He belatedly ducks into a crouch, pancied hands clamping around his head as he turned to face his assailant. He blinks in confusion to find it’s Sheppard. “What the Hell?!”

“No, shut up,” which is another McKay Expression falling out of John Sheppard’s mouth, but it isn’t quite as charming this time around. His voice is angry and harsh, ragged over his teeth. “I told you I wanted to keep things casual.”

Bending down, Rodney retrieves his toiletry bag from the floor, one hand still rubbing at the back of his skull. “A toothbrush? Really? You’re pissed off over a toothbrush?” He slides it into a cargo pocket.

“ _And_ the pudding, _and_ the stupid flowers, _and_ Ronon’s noticed, and nothing about this is casual, McKay!”

Rodney throws his arms wide. “Have you _met_ me?!” 

“We can’t. This has to.” But John can’t quite finish the sentences. He looks nothing less than like a panicked bird trapped in a cage, and that hurts Rodney’s heart to see. 

Silence sits between them like a witness until Rodney cracks.

“Look,” He says in a rush, trying to sound reasonable when he feels anywhere but. “The-- the pudding. You know I get Zelenka that weird chocolate from Prague he likes too, right? It has pepper in it or something; I don’t know, it’s weird. But he was smuggling it in, and that was stupid, so I just added it to the manifest and now some lacky at the IOA has to order it special for him because I said so. Or those little waving cats? The ones you love and I find obnoxious? You know those are all Kusanagi’s. ‘We must make our own luck,’ she says, and her original one broke that first year in the Siege, and now Muller orders her a new one every run, so they’re everywhere.” He swallows, desperation pitching his voice incrementally higher. “Elizabeth ordered us all Kona coffee. Caldwell always makes sure to drop off extra boxes of compressed air for our keyboards. Pudding... pudding isn’t anything, honest.”

John’s mouth was still a hard line. “The flowers, the… stew.”

“I-- okay, look. You not puffing up is to everyone’s benefit, right? I like when you can see to shoot, and I didn’t know if I was going to need that or not. Scientific observation. I saw the adverse stimulant, had the solution in my pocket. That-- I mean, really. You should be thanking me.” He folded his arms and lifted his chin, nothing short of a blustery bantam rooster. “The milk thing… that’s just-- no one wants to be in that position, and we were already sleeping together by then, so.” Another jut of his chin. “Not exactly altruistic.”

Sheppard takes in a breath, his head shaking once in denial. He isn’t buying what Rodney’s trying to sell.

“John,” Rodney tries again. Because he knows that look on Sheppard. It’s the look John has when telling the Wraith to take him instead of one of them; the one where he’s volunteering to strap himself to some kind of explosive device because he thinks that’s the only way he can save them all. The one that says, for God knows whatever reason — because it’s certainly not one that Rodney McKay has been able to figure out — that John Sheppard isn’t allowed a moment of happiness and will run over his own foot to ensure it can’t possibly happen. It never ends well for anyone, least of all John, when he looks like this. “Don’t… I mean, I’m sorry. I-- I overstepped and I see that now and I’m sorry. I’ll try--” 

John closed his eyes and turned his face away. “Rodney, I’m not very… this never ends well when I actually-- when it’s--.” 

Rodney’s arms are still folded against his chest and he pulls them in. “When it’s what?”

But John just holds his tongue, eyes closed, fists clenched.

“So that’s it? We’re just done? Just like that? You’re just going to throw away the best thing that’s ever happened to you?” Rodney is on the knife point between bombastic explosion and broken retreat.

“Don’t flatter yourself, McKay,” John says witheringly, though instantly feels like the world’s biggest asshole. 

Bombastic explosion it is then. “I know it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to _you_ ,” Rodney shouts, spital flying. “Because it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to _me_!” He stabbed his finger downward in emphasis.

This time, Rodney demanded. “When it’s what.”

“When I actually care, okay? When it’s real.” John opens his eyes and darts them over Rodney, angry at the truth of it. “When I actually care it always falls apart, because somehow I always care _more_ and then I’m left holding the sad sack of shit and I’m done with that, okay? So keep it casual or don’t keep it at all.”

But Rodney McKay doesn’t do causal. And John cares. For real. 

He’d realized he cared about John that first year in Atlantis, when they were fighting for their lives every other day as more Wraith woke up, and Rodney had almost died to Kolya and John almost blew himself up riding a nuke into a mothership that he’d even built for him (sort of) and maybe he’d been a little jealous of John’s gene -- or a lot jealous -- at first, but they’d worked around that and John had even brought him onto his team and taught him how to shoot a gun and fly a jumper, because before that the SGC had shipped him off to literal Siberia for the exact same qualities John said he needed in the field and he doesn’t even mind that golf is one of the most boring things ever invented, because at least at its root it’s about geometry and John could have been in MENSA and suddenly Rodney crosses the space between them, takes John Sheppard’s stupid face in his hands and kisses him.

John tries to pull back, pull away. Rodney can feel John’s mouth working his name against his lips instead of kissing back, but Rodney persists. Because this is about love and trust and if John Sheppard walks out of this room Rodney’s pretty sure he’ll forget how to breathe so he isn’t going to give it up without a fight.

Rodney can feel the exact moment John’s resolve starts to crumble. His body is still ridged and his mouth pressed flat, but there’s an almost infinitesimal sway to John’s posture that leans into him and Rodney wants to cheer and cry at the same time. 

Instead, he pulls himself away with a gentle parting and wraps his arms around John’s stiff frame, speaking softly. “I-- I care. I care a lot. And, I mean, the sex is fantastic, but you also laugh like a donkey and think Iron Man is better than Batman and insist on the lemon chicken on Thursdays anyway, and I _still_ think you’re the greatest thing to have ever happened to me. I… do what I do because I lo-- care.”

In all honesty, John could leave at any moment. Sure, Rodney is standing there, holding him, but there’s very little contest between the two of them if Sheppard really wanted to end this now. But he keeps standing there, spine straight and fists balled. But standing there.

Rodney takes this as a good sign.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he whispers against the shell of John’s ear and can feel the shudder run the length of him. “I’m bad at this. You’re bad at this. Together, we’re terrible. And we’re in a giant space city with a bunch of other poorly socialised scientists, antsy soldiers and PTSD aliens -- because you cannot convince me Ronon Dex is emotionally stable. But. I mean. Maybe if we just… I mean. We can make this work. We just. We have to. We can do this, I swear.”

Slowly, stiffly, John’s arms come up around him. “You snore,” his voice is low and raw.

“I know,” Rodney says with a measure of indulgence.

“Like. A lot.”

“I _know_.”

“And for being such a genius, your taste in movies is terrible.”

“Yes, thank you.” Rodney would be more irritated if John’s arms weren’t still around him.

“And you always have to be right.”

“Not always--!” Rodney squawks, almost pulling away. It isn’t that he _has_ to be right, it’s just that he usually _is_ right. But John’s arms tighten around him, holding him still, holding him.

“And yet,” John whispers in an impossibly small voice. “I still ‘lo-care’ about you too. Even after all that.”

Gently, Rodney pushes John back just enough to look into his face. John swallows roughly and his eyes are darting around and just how Rodney McKay became the voice of reason between the two of them is one of the universe’s greater mysteries. 

“Keep things casual,” John says softly.

Rodney tries to look earnest. “Yeah.”

“You don’t seem very good at casual, McKay.” But John is smiling this time, and still holding him, so Rodney feels he can return the smile.

“I’m… casually intense?”

John snorts at that, dropping his head to rest on Rodney’s shoulder. “Not going anywhere?” 

“Hadn’t planned on it.” Rodney gives it a moment before asking, “You?”

“Guess not.”


End file.
